Heroes Don't Get Happy Endings
by Syberian
Summary: "However as much as he tried, he could not stop the thoughts from coming. Then he would voice his own opinions and orders into his head. The man that he once crowned and idolized as the man who would save Pandora from itself." Rhys-centered story. Darker than my other stories. Reviews are always appreciated.


Rhys couldn't bring himself to do it. To hurt his friends. To harm them in such a way that would invoke distrust in them and disguist in himself. To commit bodily harm against the people whom he thought were the only true trusted people left in his previously dull, repititive life. To even consider the thought of harming, or even killing, one of them almost wanted to make him throw up in disguist in his pondering.

However as much as he tried, he could not stop the thoughts from coming. Then _he_ would voice his own opinions and orders into his head. The man that he once crowned and idolized as the man who would save Pandora from itself.

Handsome Jack. Or at least what he thought what was the previous head of the Hyperion corporation. Now he just seemed to be a computer programmed version of him. An A.I. An it, not a he. Not anymore at least.

Even thinking of such a name made him grind his teeth in frustration and anger. That man- No. That _thing_ was inside of his head giving him these murderous thoughts. He couldn't get them out. They poured into his mind like a slide show giving pictures of what each corpse of his friends would look like. At first, these thoughts were far and few between as if Jack was testing out his new "play toy". Then they came at such a horrendous pace. Day in and day out it seemed the images were a constant flow as if Jack was testing the limitations of him now. He was absolutely sick of it now.

Looking over the others as they slept in their sleeping bags, the thoughts and images came back. They were all just bandits, murderers, thieves, and betrayers in his eyes. It just seemed so easy to take his stun baton and place it over their hearts and watch them writhe and suffer as the electricity soared through their bodie-

Rhys bit down on the side of his hand as he tried to think of other things. More pleasant things. Things that did not involve death, destruction, killing, blood running across the ground, burning corpses-

He bit harder and suddenly the pang of metallic blood filled his mouth as his teeth broke his skin. He could barely feel it. This had to end. He just couldn't ever bring himself to harm her. Fiona. Or to harm any of his friends and the people he had met. Sasha, Vaughn, Yvette, Zer0, even Shade counted as one. He could never bring himself to kill her or them. So, he thought of an idea.

An insane idea that just might work. Jack always seemed to connect to him through his ECHO-netted mechanical parts. So what if he...

It had a possibility to work and he made a move to start his plan.

Taking the concealed knife and buzz-axe hidden in his sleeping bag and quietly opened the door to the caravan before leaving and closing it behind him. He had to do this fast before anyone noticed him missing. It wouldn't be long before Vaughn would be up to check on them all. So he moved through the small patch of rocky, desert area they had stationed themselves in.

_Oh, oh, oh. What are we doing now, pumpkin?_

Rhys clenched his teeth at the sounds of Jack's voice popping up in his head. Gritting his teeth he kept moving forward.

_Where ya goin' pumpkin? Don'tcha know those bandits are back there? Just waitin' for ya to kill them. It'll be easy!_

It was almost tempting to give into his words. Almost. The buzzing in his head from Jack's voice was beginning to die down as the A.I. gave up on convincing his human host to do his bidding. He would stop, for now.

Upon viewing a boulder in the distance, Rhys began to speed up his brisk walk to a slow jog. Finally reaching the large boulder- perhaps a few inches taller than his full height- he sat down behind it. He was close enough to the camp so that he could return if he failed to go through with his plan, but far away enough so that it would be difficult to track him. It was perfect in his eyes. He sat down and leaned against the boulder before the annoying, demanding voice came back.

_Alright, what's the plan kiddo? We gonna surprise those bandits when they come searchin' for ya? _

"No." he whispered.

_I didn't hear ya, pumpkin. What was that?_

"No."

_Alright, alright. Have fun doing whatever it is your doing then._

As soon as the voice disappeared, his grip on the knife tightened. Looking down at the slightly rusty metal, he found his stomach fluxuating between being in his throat and at his feet. It was taken from a bandit corpse after a few of them had tried to jump them in an attempt to take their lives. It had a slight bloody stain at the tip of it, not that it mattered now. It would not be used to draw more blood anymore.

Now, it didn't hurt at first to line it up against his cybernetic eye and slowly plunged it through the soft metal coating that surrounded the expensive, but very delicate technology. Nor did it hurt when he twisted the blade of the knife to further hook his eye on the knife so that it would be much easier to pull out a moment later. His hand was visibly shaking now from a mix of nervousness and adrenaline that filled his senses as he struggled to gently pull the knife out with his cybernetic- his fake eye out.

By the time his eye had finally popped out and onto his cheek, his breaths were fast and ragged and his hand was shaking to the point where he had to grab it with his mechanical arm to stop from accidentally ripping his eye out altogether. With the carefulness of a child picking up toys off the floor, he grasped his dangling cybernetic eye and pulled the tip of the knife out.

His vision was now almost split completely in half. The left side of his vision was placed against the cloth of his chest and the right side of his vision stared at the knife as he considered what his next plan of action should be. It was obvious that the eye couldn't be put back in now that it was out. It dangled limply on the metal chord that connected to the back of his eye socket and into his brain. Cutting that chord seemed like the obvious idea.

This part of the "operation" was the sloppiest so far. He tried to grasp the chord to get a good grip on it before cutting only to find a shock of pain and coldness go straight to his head everytime. As if he was getting repercussions of brain freeze without the need of eating or drinking anything cold. It simply would not work that way. Soon Rhys just picked up his eye and stretched the chord out as if he were about to pluck it like a guitar string. This was the better option anyways.

Placing the edge of knife gently against the chord, he began to saw back and forth. From the tip of the knife almost to the ricasso of it. At first it was just a ticklish feeling as if he couldn't get an itch out of the roof of his mouth. Soon it began to hurt. It was as if someone had set his brain on fire and had let a pack of rabid stalkers loose inside. At the first feeling of pain his hand almost stopped in retaliation, but he kept going. His grip and pull on his eye grew tighter until he felt something warm and wet stream down his left cheek. Blood, probably.

Finally Rhys had sawed through the chord and his eye snapped forward and the chord fell against his cheek. His vision instantly cut off and he could only see out of his right eye now. Looking down at the now severed eye on his left hand he found that the metal chord, where it had been broken off, had wires fraying in every direction from his sloppy cutting job. Bile rose in his throat, threatening to spill out onto the ground next to him and the knife fell out of his hand as he covered his mouth. He had done it. There was no turning back now.

_W-w-w-what the h-h-h-h-h-hell do you t-t-t-think you're d-d-d-oing?_

The voice was disorientated as if there was static on the other side. Good. Cutting out his eye was stopping the man warping his thoughts. He only a short amount of time to do the next part before Vaughn and the others would certainly notice his abscence from the caravan.

Picking up the buzz-axe from his side and he began to consider where to cut. His headache was growing worse and worse by the second and finally he blindly struck his mechanical right arm. From what his half-blind vision could provide him, he had somewhere in the middle of his shoulder and bend of his elbow. Struggling to pull the buzz-axe out of the crumpling metal he felt his heart pumping, his head aching, and his breathing coming out in ragged gasps now. Finally pulling it free, he swung again.

_S-s-s-stop!_

The buzzing in his head that came from Jack's voice only caused his headache to worsen. He swung again.

_S-S-S-S-TOP YOU IMB-B-B-BECILE!_

He swung again.

_Y-Y-Y-Y-YOU N-N-N-N-N-N-N-NEED T-T-T-TO S-S-S-S-TOP!_

Finally he swung once again and he felt a weight drop from the right side of his body. The voice and buzzing ceased in his head. The feeling of losing a limb, even a fake one at that, gave him a sense of déjà vu of his previously cut off, human arm. Looking down at his now detached mechanical limb he felt a phantom limb present and even tried to move his right hand around to no avail.

However, the job was finally done. Handsome Jack, or what was previously Handsome Jack, was out of his head. He wasn't a danger to anyone anymore. So Rhys smiled and leaned his head back against the cold rock that had been his shelter the whole time. It felt good to be free.

Just as soon as this thought left him, a blue light caught his gaze as it appeared before him. It soon, to his horror, disbelief, and remorse, digustructed into a full body view of Handsome Jack. His body was blue and was glitching out as if trying to stay in this plane of existence. It stooped down so that it was eye level with him and gave him a diguisting, warped smirk.

"_Heroes. Don't. Get. Happy. Endings._"

With that the A.I. lifted a hand up near his port on the side of his head and placed his index finger against it. Soon afterwards, he disappeared and he felt a chilling laughter echo inside his head.

Rhys did all that he wanted to then. He curled up into a ball and rocked himself back and forth with the balls of his feet.

It was true. Heroes didn't get happy endings. And he wasn't getting his.

**Author's Note: This is a much, much darker story than what I have been writing. However, I felt compelled to write it. Just a "What if..." scenario that has been floating around in my mind for a few days. I hope you enjoyed, thank you for reading.**


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